"These anemic growth numbers prove that this president's economic agenda has been a comprehensive failure," said U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Fairhope, in a statement to AL.com. "The House
continues to pass common-sense job creation measures that languish in the
Senate, falling victim to politically motivated stonewalling that is having a
real and detrimental impact on American families."

The GDP report for the first three months of 2014 was surprisingly weak. Had the GDP number gone into negative territory, the economy would have been seen as contracting. Two straight quarters of negative growth are generally viewed as an economic recession.

Some economists believe that the Affordable Care Act may have kept the economy from shrinking in the first quarter of 2014. In a story for Reuters, one researcher said Obamacare served as a floor that stopped the economic dive into red ink.

"GDP growth would have ... been negative were it
not for healthcare spending," Harm Bandholz, chief economist at
UniCredit Research in New York, told Reuters.